Paisley Currah

Professor
Political Science

Location: 3405 James HallPhone: 718.951.5306 Fax: 718.951.4833 Email:

Paisley Currah is the founding co-editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Recent articles include: "Homonationalism, State Rationalities, and Sex Contradictions" (Theory & Event); "Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Gender Non-conforming Bodies at the Airport," co-authored with Tara Mulqueen (Social Research); "'We Won't Know Who You Are': Contesting Sex Designations on New York City Birth Certificates," co-authored with Lisa Jean Moore (Hypatia); and "The Transgender Rights Imaginary." His book, Not the United States of Sex (NYU, forthcoming) looks at contradictions in state definitions of sex. He has a blog at http://www.paisleycurrah.com; his articles can be found on https://brooklyn-cuny.academia.edu/PaisleyCurrah. He also co-edited Corpus: An Interdisciplinary Reader on Bodies and Knowledge(2011). He is a co-editor of Transgender Rights (2006), the first comprehensive work on the transgender civil rights movement.

Education:

Areas of Expertise:

In his current research, Currah looks at how states classify sex, focusing on the contradictions in definitions of sex (as in male and female) from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and agency to agency. He has also written widely on the transgender rights movement in the United States. His teaching interests include sexuality and gender studies, LGBT studies, queer legal theory, public policy, and political theory, including contemporary political thought, biopolitics and surveillance studies.

Currah, Paisley and Monica Casper. Corpus: An Interdisciplinary Reader on Bodies and Knowledge. An edited collection that explores bodies and embodiment through multiple interdisciplinary lenses, including studies of aging, feminist technoscience, food, fat studies, race and genetics, new media, death, sexuality, surveillance and trauma. Showcasing original work by a range of up-and-coming and senior scholars. Palgrave. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2011

Currah, Paisley, Jamison Green and Susan Stryker. "The State of Transgender Rights in the United States of America," a working paper written for the Global Dialog on Sexual Health and Well Being, organized by the four regional National Sexuality Resource Centers and funded by Ford. Published by the National Sexuality Resource Center in March and presented in New York on April 17. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2009

Currah, Paisley and Dean Spade, guest co-editors. "The State We're In: Locations of Coercion and Resistance in Trans Policy, Part II." Sexuality Research and Social Policy V.i, March. The entire issue is online here. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2008

Currah, Paisley and Dean Spade, guest co-editors. "The State We're In: Locations of Coercion and Resistance in Trans Policy, Part I." Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of National Sexuality Resource Center IV.iv, December. The entire issue is online HERE.(Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2007

Currah, Paisley, Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter, editors. Transgender Rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. The first comprehensive book on the U.S. transgender rights movement. Over the past three decades, the transgender movement has gained visibility and achieved significant victories. Discrimination has been prohibited in several states, dozens of municipalities, and more than 200 private companies, while hate crime laws in eight states have been amended to include gender identity. Yet prejudice and violence against transgender people remain all too common. With analysis from legal and policy experts, activists and advocates, transgender rights assesses the movement's achievements, challenges and opportunities for future action. This groundbreaking book is an indispensable resource in the fight for the freedom and equality of those who cross gender boundaries. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2006

Currah, Paisley, and Shannon Minter. "Unprincipled Exclusions: The Struggle for Legislative and Judicial Protections for Transgendered People." Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity. Eds. Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schnaffer. New York: Routledge. 35-49. Revised and expanded from: Currah, Paisley and Shannon Minter, "Unprincipled Exclusions: The Struggle for Legislative and Judicial Protections for Transgendered People." College of William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law 7.1, Fall 2000: 37-66. (Books and Publications: Chapter) 2004

"The Transgender Rights Imaginary." Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 4: 705-20. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2003

Review of Joanne Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the U.S. Women's Review of Books, February. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2003

Awards, Honors and Fellowships

Michael Lynch Service Award, from the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association. The award is intended, in Eve Sedgwick's words, "to publicize and celebrate--and as widely as possible--the range, the forms, the energy, and the history of queer activism by academics." (Awards and Honors) 2011

Small Research Grant Award, from The Williams Institute's Small Grants Program, for "Administrating Sex: Investigating How Federal Agencies Develop Criteria for Sex Reclassification." (Grants and Fellowships) 2010

Open Society Institute ($15,000) and Gill Foundation ($15,000), for a conference and book,
"Trans Justice, Social Change, and Politics." Principal investigator as leader of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY. (Grants and Fellowships) 2004

Wayne F. Placek Award, American Psychological Foundation. One of two scholars chosen nationally for award to support two years of research investigating federal and state judicial opinions and briefing materials involving transgender plaintiffs and the construction of gender in the law. $30,000. (Grants and Fellowships) 2002

Research Activities

Current book project: The United States of Sex: Legislating, Litigating, and Regulating (Trans)Gender. The book includes previously unpublished chapters on gender classification and the recognition vs. distribution debate; the "freeze-frame" policy currently governing many incarcerated transgender individuals; sovereignty, governmentality, and legal sex; and gender "degenerates" and asexual reproduction. Under contract with NYU Press. 2015

Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums

Currah, Paisley and Tara Mulqueen. "Securitizing Gender." The Body and the State: 22nd Social Research Conference at the New School. New York, February. On youtube about 57:03 minutes into the clip.(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2011

"Reproducing Citizenship: Blood, Soil, and the Pregnant Man." All in the Family: An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Kinship and Community. The Center for Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center. New York, March 24-25. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010

"Not the United States of Gender: Framing Transgender Activism in Societies of Control." Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, 2007-08 Distinguished Lecture Series. Nov. 8. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007

"The State of Queer Studies." University of Massachusetts, Amherst, March 1. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007

Currah, Paisley and Lisa Jean Moore. "'We Don't Know Who You Are': Birth Certificate Policy Reform, Transgender Activism and Medical Expertise," The Future of Sexuality Research: Methodological to Social Policy Innovations Conference, co-sponsored by the National Consortium for Sexuality Research and Training and The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington, held at the Kinsey Institute, April 9-11. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2007

Currah, Paisley and Lisa Jean Moore. "'We Don't Know Who You Are': Transgender Identity Documents in the Post 9/11 U.S." Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York University. March 28. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007

Currah, Paisley and Lisa Moore. "Disintegrated Identification and Surveillance: The Trans Bodies as Harbingers," Workshop on Surveillance and Inequality, funded by the National Science Foundation. Arizona State University. March 16-18. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2007

External Advisory Committee to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for the Amendment of Birth Certificates for Transgender Persons, January 2005-December 2006. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2006

Member, Steering Committee, University Consortium on Sexuality Research and Training, March 2006-present. (A project of the Ford Foundation to support sexuality research training in the United States) (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2006

Citizens Advisory Committee Transgender Subcommittee, New York City Human Resources Administration; co-author, "Recommended Best Practices for Working With and Serving Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Employees and Clients," November 2004-December 2005. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2005

Research consultant to Dean Spade's project, "Deregulating Gender: Model Policies for Transgender Equality," Sexuality Research Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Social Science Research Council with funding from the Ford Foudation, 2005-06. 2006